According to a European Commission document obtained by EUROPE on Friday 3 July, the future European Union Strategy for Energy System Integration will be based on five pillars in order to progressively plan and operate the entire European energy system in a coordinated manner, creating closer links between the multiple vectors, infrastructures and energy consumption sectors.
According to this new version of the strategy, sectoral integration will make it possible to reduce CO2 emissions from sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, such as buildings, heavy transport, maritime transport, aviation or certain industrial processes “in using decarbonised energies such as low-carbon electricity or renewable gases in combination with innovative technologies on the demand side”.
A more circular energy system. Firstly, the document stresses that the ‘energy efficiency first principle’ will be the “heart” of a more circular energy system.
To this end, the Commission will provide guidance to Member States by 2021 on how to make this principle operational throughout the energy system.
As part of the revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive scheduled for June 2021, it will review the default primary energy factor (PEF) “so that it fully reflects the energy efficiency savings from renewable electricity and heat” the document further states.
Accelerate electrification. The second pillar detailed in the document, the acceleration of the electrification of energy demand, should be “largely” based on renewable energies, the Commission says. And the paper points out that electricity is expected to account for between 40 and 50% of final energy consumption in the EU by 2050, with a share of renewables in the electricity mix of between 80 and 85%, according to projections.
To this end, the strategy emphasises the need to increase the supply of offshore renewable electricity.
As regards the sectors to be electrified, the text mentions in particular buildings - notably through the installation of heat pumps - and transport, a sector in which the Commission has the ambition to deploy two million public charging stations by 2025.
As in the case of the first pillar, the Commission will provide guidance to Member States by 2021, this time with a view to addressing the high charges and levies borne by electricity compared to other energy carriers.
In addition, the document very often refers to more targeted subsequent initiatives such as the ‘Renovation Wave’, the Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy, the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive, the amendment of the TEN-E Regulation or the revision of the Energy Taxation Directive.
Thus, whether it concerns energy efficiency or renewables, this provisional version of the strategy for sector integration remains vague, lacks figures and contains few concrete measures, according to a European source consulted by EUROPE.
Promote renewable fuels. Thirdly, in order to have alternatives to electricity for sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, the strategy will target “promoting renewable and low-carbon fuels”, such as biogas and biomethane, biofuels, renewable and low-carbon hydrogen or synthetic fuels, the document says.
Several measures are mentioned, in particular: (1) the establishment by June 2021 of a European certification scheme for all renewable and low-carbon fuels, based in particular on emission reduction and sustainability criteria; (2) the potential setting of minimum renewable hydrogen quotas in certain end-use sectors (a possibility already included in the draft hydrogen strategy (see EUROPE 12511/11) as well as minimum renewable fuel quotas in sectors such as aviation and transport maritime; (3) the creation by 2023 of a regulatory framework for the certification of carbon removals based on robust and transparent carbon accounting to monitor and verify the authenticity of carbon removals.
Concerning this third pillar, the development of hydrogen as well as carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies seems to be an integral part of the Commission's future strategy.
“Carbon capture and storage has the potential to play a role in a climate-neutral energy system, in particular by tackling hard-to-reduce emissions in certain large industrial installations”, the document says.
A craze for CCUS technologies that MEP Damien Carême (Greens/EFA, France) does not share. According to the latter, “in promoting ‘blue’ hydrogen produced from gas and expensive carbon capture and storage technologies, the Commission would send the wrong signal and get stuck in the logic of fossil industries ”.
Mr Lent was also surprised that, while the document recalled the forthcoming creation of a clean hydrogen alliance (see EUROPE 12497/26), it did not mention any potential alliance on renewables.
Digitisation of the energy system. Finally, the fourth and fifth pillars deal with the adaptation of European energy markets to decarbonisation and diversity of energy resources and the digitisation of the energy system.
On the latter point, the document mentions the adoption by 2021 of an Action Plan for the digitisation of energy “in order to develop a competitive market for digital energy services that ensures data privacy and sovereignty”.
The European Commission will formally present the EU Strategy for Energy System Integration and the Hydrogen Strategy on 8 July.
See the draft strategy: https://bit.ly/3dTYVE0 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)